Fax Server Redundancy – Protecting Your Document Communications

Open Text Fax & Document Distribution Group has posted a new article on Fax Server Redundancy.

Wikipedia defines redundancy as, “the duplication of critical components of a system with the intention of increasing reliability of the system, usually in the case of a backup or fail-safe.”

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redundancy_(engineering). Makes sense so far, right? We all know however, that redundant systems can increase overall system availability too, meaning users or processes can run more efficiently. Still for being such a broad topic with many variables, we do see all kinds of monikers used when it comes to this subject: High-availability; load-balancing; fault-tolerant, disaster recovery, and so on. From an abstract perspective all of them are in some way descriptive of redundancy, with the end result real easy to understand: No loss of data and interruptions to your business.

A business interruption can be anything; telephone or internet failures; a corrupt database; a computer virus, a bad disk drive, a failed CPU in the datacenter, or any unplanned system downtime. They can even be as far reaching as a full scale disaster; floods, power outages, hurricanes, or even terror attacks. It goes without saying, but measures must be made to ensure that all mission critical applications are in some way redundant. This could mean anything from a simple backup to a full-blown high available, redundant system. The choice is yours, and the options are plentiful.

Yet, the biggest challenge when considering redundancy for a software application like an enterprise fax server is exactly how much redundancy do you want? After all, Open Text Fax Server, RightFax Edition has a multi-layered architecture in which various components, databases, or processes can be placed into redundant scenarios that can ensure high uptimes while preserving faxes and data from being lost. This is good. Preserving lost faxes means preserving your business after all.

Getting down to some specifics: When architecting your fax solution to provide maximum uptime it is helpful to understand the difference between fault-tolerance and system redundancy, as both can be addressed differently and have different ramifications to a business that relies on fax. A fault-tolerant system will continue to work if a single fax server component fails. Redundancy on the other hand, allows the entire fax enterprise to continue operating if one major component of that system fails. In a redundant scenario each component of the fax server must be duplicated. Typically it is common to have two fax servers operating in tandem, so that if one server fails the other server will continue to operate.

In practical terms specific to Open Text Fax Server, RightFax Edition, there are three typical redundant scenarios used:

Load-balancing and Shared Services: This is a scenario in which a fax server shares its database of users, groups, printers, etc. amongst an enterprise of multiple fax servers. Typical with any company having more than one physical location, combined with the advancements made in Fax Server architecture, less fax server resources are now needed at the remote locations, making it easier to build in redundancy while leveraging your company LAN/WAN. In the end, a proper load balancing and shared services scenario will allow Fax Server to literally share its various server services and fax images across a network. In fact, many will say that this is very similar to an active-active cluster, in which shared resources not only ensure backup, but provides processing optimization and single location to administer. Furthermore, Fax Server is optimized for high-availability, in which the database resources are shared such that the application is providing a centralized location for all company users, groups, and other data object, it does not have to be replicated anywhere else. Here’s an example: A fax server in Los Angeles will be “aware” of users located in the New York office because the database is shared. There is no need to have user data replicated across the enterprise. That shared database in L.A. can obviously be placed into a database cluster for redundancy purposes. All in all, taking advantage of Open Text Fax Server’s shared service architecture will boost your system reliability and your business’s ability to run without failure.

A “Cold Spare” Scenario: A cold spare configuration is intended for use in the event of a long-term system shut down, a failure, or any other system interruption that may take more time to repair. Typically this is implemented as two fax servers on two hardware servers (or virtualized) as a primary server and a secondary server. It is important to note that a cold spare is not used in production but is available so that it will expedite recovery. A cold spare system is typically stored in an isolated or remote location and is considered to be “offline”. Its purpose is to be activated in the event of a primary system failure. This is a straightforward approach and offers an affordable way to have a level of redundancy if you can tolerate some manual intervention.

Active-Passive Clustering: Typically, cluster environments protect against an application/service failure, system/hardware failure, site failure and even downtimes due to planned maintenance. In the case of Open Text Fax Server where a primary fax server had a failure, the business would revert to a secondary server to continue fax processing. That is of course, if a second fax server system has been setup to function as a passive “node”. What’s nice about Fax Server’s approach to this is the “node” doesn’t have to be the entire server application. Since Fax Server connects to the telephone system, there is a way to leverage the architecture to realize the benefits of clustering. Using remote Doctransports will allow you to divide up your fax channels between one active node (a.k.a a Open Text Fax Server) and a passive node (a.k.a. a backup copy of Fax Server). You still get the same channel capacity 100% of the time, but in the event of a node failure, those fax channels simply “see” the other node and keep on processing your critical fax documents. Combine this with the shared database and services and you’re now starting to build a high available redundant system unparalleled in efficiency and effectiveness.

Lots of choices and options are available to build a redundant Open Text Fax Server, RightFax Edition system and keep your business up and running. As stated before, the options are plentiful, no matter what size your company. Be sure to work with a Open Text Fax Server VAR or Partner who can help design a plan that meets your needs.

To learn more about Fax Server, RightFax Edition and devising redundant scenarios to protect your business, download our eBook jointly published with Windows IT Pro.